Stakeholder Engagement, including Simulation™

The ability to understand and build consensus with your stakeholders is the only way to get lasting solutions to problems. Without buy-in, your piece of work is likely to fail or prove costly in both time and effort. This workshop will provide you with the invaluable experience, tools and techniques to build collaborative solutions to problems and overcome resistance to: getting results, decision-making and change.

Who is a stakeholder? A stakeholder can be an individual, a group – internal or external to your organisation; or another organisation that has an interest in, can be affected by, or affect your project or programme.

What is a Simulation? Our simulations are a business game version of reality, attendees practice in safety, and hone their skills in a realistic (but not real) environment. Mistakes here don’t cost your organisation anything or harm personal or business reputations.

• Stakeholder Engagement™ workshop brochure - > download

Wouldn't it be great to bring to life the universal leadership challenge of gaining buy-in and approval across a range of interested parties, with often different and conflicting interests? So you can build your knowledge in the ‘soft’ skills of listening and influencing - and the techniques around building an effective communication plan. This workshop is for anyone who needs to engage and influence their stakeholders, it provides a range of knowledge, tools and techniques in a risk-free environment. You'll be able to:

• Understand, engage and manage different levels of stakeholder - inside and outside your organisation.
• Develop positive relationship management skills for long-term success.
• Manage difficult or complex stakeholder groups.

The challenge

Flushed with some initial successes in management, most of us get handed a project – even though we may have precious little formal training or experience. This does not need to be a problem, we can attend a five-day residential course to cram lots of theory so we pass an exam and get a piece of paper that says we are officially recognised as a project manager.

So now you’re ready to handle that tricky, multi-million pound project with the 20 strong team looking to you for guidance – right? Wrong.

Sadly, this all too common scenario often leads to project managers becoming overworked at best, or they fail a project so spectacularly that their career is put in jeopardy.

How this workshop will help

Wouldn't it be sensible to have some form of ‘driving lesson’ for those leading projects? After all, aircraft pilots have simulators for their 'big projects' – so why can't we have management simulators?

Indigo Simulations, our suite of project and programme focused management simulations, allow you, your team and even your whole organisation to practice project management in a safe, blended (simulation and instructor-led) workshop.

Workshop overview

The one-day Managing Stakeholders simulation is derived from a simulation that was originally commissioned by Shell, and is an important addition for anyone who has completed our industry leading Project Management Survival Guide™ workshop.

The simulation brings to life the universal leadership challenge of gaining buy-in and approval across a range of interested parties with often different and conflicting interests. Building your knowledge in the ‘soft’ skills of project management as well as testing your ‘hard’ project skills.

The simulation has been used in project and general management training programmes and also a range of leadership initiatives too. It simulates many of the issues associated with corporate responsibility, including how to define the ultimate success criteria of projects and the value of reputation.

“The small number of hours you spend on the Managing Stakeholders simulation is very, very powerful stuff. We use it on all our projects, in the early stages, and also during interim stages, as we are growing our management structure” - The Mace Group

Workshop benefits

1. Managers develop skills by taking decisions; doing - and then by reflecting on the outcomes of these actions.
2. The skill set you need is complex. This system allows you to develop skills that are subtle and are about dealing with situations where there aren't necessarily any “right answers”.
3. You are given an opportunity to make mistakes - but in an environment where mistakes do not cost anything.
4. You and your teams can experience the outcomes of your actions - something we don’t always benefit from in the real world because of the distance between cause and effect.
5. Receive honest and immediate feedback - about your actions with our live feedback reporting system – during and after the project.
6. Welcome to 21st century learning - It is well documented that the next generation of learners are requiring more innovative and interactive learning methods.
7. Learn by discovering - which any management book will tell you is far more powerful than “being told”.
8. Change behaviour - rather than just add to the mountain of information that the 21st Century executive already has.

Workshop outline

TIME EFFICIENT: Run over one-day, this time-efficient programme is pragmatic for your people in today’s time-poor environment. Teams of three people go through the experience together, allowing them to verbalise, reflect and learn from the decisions they make and their results. Typically five teams take part in the workshop, which adds a fun, competitive and lively element to the experience that delegates relish.

YOUR EXPERT INDIGO TRAINER: Your facilitator, with proven project management and management experience, runs the workshop. Drawing out the learning and facilitating delegate discussions of how the learning relates back to their real project challenges – they are charged with developing their own action plan to take back and implement.

MIXED CHALLENGES: Most of our clients tell us that running a small project is challenging but doable. As the projects get larger and more complex, it’s the people, the politics and the personalities that cause the headaches. For the first time, Indigo Simulations and the Managing Stakeholders programme allow delegates to practice these 'people skills' in a project, through the medium of meetings, emails, phone calls and the media, without actually making career-limiting mistakes.

The Stakeholder Engagement simulation™ has been used in project and general management contexts and a range of leadership courses. This workshop is not just for project manager' it's for individuals and teams, of any level, that need to'manage projects.

Similar to the Project Management Survival Guide™, this workshop is ideal for both entry-level, first-time project managers and experienced project managers.

There are no pre-requisites.

Stakeholder Engagement™ can count towards your CPD recognition with leading professional bodies or trade organisations. You can normally record your attendance in the 'organised learning' or 'self-learning' sections. Please check with your membership organisation for more information.

Certificate of completion

Digital certificate - Included